Asia | Korea | Activism

S. Korea’s job training program for women expands in Vietnam

Last year, Lee Ji-hyang, a South Korean manicurist, flew to Vietnam for a new challenge. She signed up to teach women job seekers in Quang Nam, a province in Vietnam’s South Central Coast region, as part of Korea’s assistance program for developing countries. “I trained about 40 women who wished to be manicurists for about a month,” Lee told The Korea Herald. “I had an interpreter with me throughout all of the classes, but sometimes I didn’t really need to explain anything verbally because they already knew what to do. They were all very determined.” Ironically, labor po

Asia | Korea | Activism

Women activists cross on bus after denied permit to walk across Koreas’ DMZ

Source: US News and World Report

International women activists including Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace laureates on Sunday were denied an attempt to walk across the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea, but were allowed to cross by bus and complete what one of them called a landmark peace event. The group of 30 women from 15 countries made a final appeal to authorities on both sides to allow them to walk across the demarcation line, but were turned down. The North allowed a South Korean bus to cross the demarcation line to pick them up on the North side of the DMZ and transport them over the border to Sou

Asia | Korea | Activism

NKorean defectors ask women activists to be stopped at border

Source: UPI

North Korean defectors requested an international group of women activists that includes Gloria Steinem be stopped from crossing the DMZ after North Korea claimed two of the activists outwardly praised Kim Il Sung. An article in Thursday's Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's state newspaper, said the Women Cross DMZ delegates toured Mangyongdae, the designated birthplace of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung on Wednesday. According to North Korea, during the tour Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire said she was "highly touched" after learning about Kim Il Sung's revolutionary life. Women

Asia | Korea | Activism

Seoul to let women activists march from North to South Korea

Source: Business Insider

South Korea will allow an international women's group to enter the country on a planned march from North Korea by crossing the heavily-fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ), South Korean government officials told Reuters on Friday. The WomenCrossDMZ group, headed by activist and feminist Gloria Steinem, says it plans to embark on the May 24 march from the North Korean capital Pyongyang to the DMZ separating the two Koreas to "call for an end to the Korean War".

Asia | Korea | Activism

Activists Say Both North Korea and South Korea Approve Women’s Peace Walk

Source: The New York Times

Organizers of a women’s international peace walk across the Korean Peninsula’s heavily mined Demilitarized Zone next month said Friday that the governments of both North and South Korea had given their conditional approval for the event, which is meant to create new pressure for a formal end to the Korean War. But the organizers acknowledged that they did not yet have the final written confirmations or visa approvals. Participants in the walk, which includes a number of Nobel laureates and disarmament activists, are planning to go regardless and have purchased plane tickets, the organizer